The upstairs room of Buddy Guy’s Legends was jam-packed for poetry and fiction at Thursday night’s AWP IR/Gulf Coast reading in Chicago. Special thanks to Gulf Coast for your hard work and to those of you who came out to listen and to all of our readers who rocked harder than the floor-buzzing blues jam going on downstairs during the reading.

Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: IR Nonfiction’s Unofficial Oscar Predictions for Best Short Films 2012. Every month and with varying degrees of success, I gather essays together from our nonfiction submissions and try to gauge what will excite our selection committee, so you know picking winners is part of my regular routine. If you haven’t seen this year’s nominees for best shorts, you must, and then let me know if you agree with my thoroughly unstudied predictions (apparently, most people don’t, so it’s okay).

Best Live Action Short Film: My money is with Norwegian film “Tuba Atlantic.” With only six days to live, grumpy old Oskar reaches out to his brother across the Atlantic, but no one knows for sure whether his brother will get the message. Props to the film’s writer Linn-Jeanethe Kyed for the cheeky, moving script.

Best Animated Short Film: Are there always so many Canadian entrants in the short film category? “Wild Life” tells the story of a dapper, young Englishman determined to settle the Canadian wilderness and of what happens when ambitions clash with actuality. Again, huge writer props to Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilly for the spare, even script, and super bonus points to the film’s gorgeous hand-painted look.

As you might imagine, Indiana Review‘s poetry editor is a busy, busy woman, but Cate Lycurgus takes a moment to speak in exclamation points and spread a little literary love.

Where are you from?

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and did my undergraduate degree there. I miss the sun and the ocean and the tart frozen yogurt!

Favorite issue of IR?

33.2 because it’s here! And because it was the first issue that I really remember fighting for poems. There were pieces I felt strongly about, and wanted to see them published.

Fave non-IR journals?

Too many to count! I love Crazyhorse and Pleiades and Hayden’s Ferry. I also can’t get enough of Poetry, and I look forward to it every month. Especially the “Q and A” issue in December. Hearing writers answer questions about craft and about particular poems is such a treat, and I learn more from them than many literature classes and lectures.

What/who is on your reading wishlist right now?

When they come out this spring, Todd Boss’ Pitch and Mike McGriff’s Sequence of the Night. I want to read Kimberly Johnson’s A Metaphorical God, and Juliana Spahr’s Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You. I always want to return to Rilke, to his Duino Elegies. For fiction, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harback, then so much non-fiction: Reza Aslan’s Beyond Fundamentalism, Melissa Coleman’s This Life is in Your Hands, Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin: An American Life–I want to read that to my dad.

What do you hope to see next for IR?

Previews of poems that will appear in our next issue online and maybe some new online content. While holding a journal comes first in my heart, I appreciate a tasteful website that has inspiring work so I can get a flavor of it through browsing. I want people to see what a stunning journal IR is and to subscribe!

Favorite issue of IR?31.2, Winter 2009, because it was the first issue I saw. It’s as old as my studentship at IU, and it introduced me to the work of writers like Michael Martone and Dan Beachy-Quick, whose work I still follow. Plus, I love that wicked rabbit on the cover.

Favorite non-IR journals?

I love the Canadian journal Geist. It’s funny, Canada isn’t that far away, but reading Geist you get a real sense of a different culture. I’m also interested in journals that are dedicated to more specific projects, like Alimentum, a journal that showcases work about food, which Deb introduced me to; Memoir, which pushes the boundaries of traditional memoir; Fourth Genre, which focuses on creative nonfiction; or Camera Obscura, which has some beautiful fiction and photography.

What/Who is on your reading wish list right now?

I am itching for summer, when I’ll have the time to finally read Moby Dick. The short passages that I have read are stunning. I can’t wait to read it from beginning to end.

What do you hope to see next for IR?

I’m interested to see where we go in the next five or ten years with digital literature, interactive written work that is only available online. I think digital literature offers some really interesting possibilities, and I will be following IR long after I graduate to see how we eventually develop those ideas.